Massachusetts businessman Michael Smith is suing AT&T over a $1million phone bill for dozens of phone call he never made.
Mr Smith says that during one weekend in 2009, phone hackers used his phone system to make hundreds of calls to Somalia.
AT&T sued him for the $891,470 calls plus interest, but have since dropped their claim – if he drops his counter-suit.
Mr Smith told The Salem News he repeatedly asked AT&T to write off the bill, which was accrued over the course of four days.
He said paying it could force his business to close, leaving 14 families in the lurch.
Mr Smith’s phone service is provided by Verizon, and luckily, someone at the company noticed the unusual number of international calls being made one weekend — $260,000 worth — and shut down the company’s ability to make international calls.
Verizon wrote off the $260,000 bill, but somehow, the hackers still managed to make calls to Somalia at a rate of $22 per minute.
Mr Smith said he never had a contract with AT&T, but that the hackers used a ‘dial around’ to use AT&T’s services.
The company said that Mr Smith is at fault for not securing his phone lines better.
‘They’re taking a hard line,’ said Mr Smith. He added that he was told by AT&T’s attorneys that they would take action if he ‘disparaged’ the company’s name in the media.
It looks like exactly those tactics worked, as the company dropped their case the same day Mr Smith’s story hit the press.
